


Voices in another room

by Pessa



Category: Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26263591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pessa/pseuds/Pessa
Summary: In the years between Voyager's return and the repeal of the synth ban, Janeway, Seven of Nine, and Chakotay love each other and disappoint each other. Also they talk about politics a lot.
Relationships: Chakotay & Seven of Nine, Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway, Chakotay/Seven of Nine (past), Kathryn Janeway & Seven of Nine, Kathryn Janeway/Seven of Nine (messy unresolved feels), Seven of Nine/Female OC
Comments: 19
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am a diehard J/C shipper, but I recently watched Human Error and... I kinda dug it? Their romantic relationship Should Not Be, but Chakotay desperately wants someone to take care of and Seven needs some caring. I feel similarly about J/7. Anyway my point is that this thing contains elements of all three relationships, but is probably only satisfying to those who are into J/C.

_ The Admiral _

The first thing she hears when she wakes up is his voice, drifting in from the kitchen. She can’t make out the words, for the most part. Just snatches. She assumes Wea or Nadia have dropped by. It can’t be Pako - Chakotay’s voice sounds different when he talks to his son.

She’s in no hurry to get up. Her first full day back is always a lazy one. “Total structural collapse on all decks,” Chakotay calls it, teasing. The transit ship she takes to reach this out-of-the-way planet of his got her to his house at around four in the afternoon yesterday. They spent the evening talking and making love, and before they fell asleep she insisted that they plan a hike to the falls early the next morning, while he gently laughed at her.

“I’m serious this time,” she told him. “I feel great. I’ll have plenty of energy in the morning.”

“Sure,” he agreed. “Let’s do it.”

She huffed. “I mean it!”

“I believe you.” He hid his laugh in a kiss to her shoulder. “Just like I believed you last time. And the time before.”

“You’re humoring me. Stop it.”

“Kathryn.” He rolled her over and smoothed the hair out of her face. “The world won’t end if you sleep in, you know. It’s OK to be tired.”

Her hands went automatically to her hips, though she was aware how silly it must look when she was naked in his bed. Hard to drop out of admiral mode right away. “I  _ know  _ that. If I wanted to sleep in I would. I’m just saying, I won’t.”

“And I’m just saying, okay.” He kissed her and turned out the light. “See you at dawn.”

His clock reads 10:05 when the mid-morning sun finally makes her crack her eyes open. She dozes for a few more minutes, listening to the calm, steady sound of his voice, and drifts in the clean scent of their sheets - what detergent does he use, anyway? Maybe she can get some for her quarters on the Esperanza - before the smell of coffee and eggs drags her out of bed to the kitchen.

He’s at the stove frying vegan sausages and half turns his head when she comes in. “Morning,” he says. “Coffee’s on the counter. Help yourself.”

She pours herself a cup in one of the knobbly mugs Pako made in school, with KATHRYN painted in shaky letters on the side. Her head is throbbing lightly from caffeine withdrawal. Normally by now she’d be on her second or third cup of the day. She pounds half of it, then sets it on the counter and wraps her arms around him from behind, burying her nose between his shoulder blades. Mmm.

“Hi.” She can feel the smile in his voice and it makes her ache with tenderness.

“I dream about this,” she mumbles into the softness of his grey t-shirt. “When some noxious bureaucrat is screaming at me about diplomatic protocol, I close my eyes and imagine it.”

“My trapezius muscle?”

“Mm hmm.”

She’s gotten better at this - telling him how she feels. Easier, though, when she can’t see his face. One last firm squeeze and she lets him go and drifts to the kitchen table with her coffee. “Can I do anything?” she asks.

“Dishes, later.” He laughs at the look on her face. “I would think your traditionalist upbringing would make you less disgusted by washing dishes.”

“Why do you think I moved to space?”

“So you could boss people around.”

“That too.” She stretches, wiggling her toes into a sunbeam that slants onto the dark red tiles of the floor. She loves this house so much. “Were Nadia and Wea here?”

“No. Why?”

“I heard you talking to someone.”

He’s plating sausages, his back to her. “I was just practicing. I have a spot on the holos this afternoon.”

After much agonizing, Chakotay took a contract as a commentator for one of the news holos last year. He hates it, hates the sound-bites and the contrived back-and-forth and the crazies they give airtime to in the name of balance, but he feels that someone sane has to regularly stick up for the refugees.

Besides, being a minor celebrity makes it much easier for him to get the supplies he needs for the camps. “You’re nobody to them unless they’ve seen you on the holos this week,” he says, and she’s not sure what’s worse - hearing that kind of cynicism about the Federation in his voice, or knowing that he’s right.

After breakfast she dutifully does the dishes while he works on a grant proposal for medical supplies, and when she’s finished he reaches out one long arm and tugs at her t-shirt, pulling her down to straddle him. She kisses him slowly, allowing the heat between them to build on its own time instead of chasing it down. One of his hands threads up through her hair, the other is strong around her waist.

They move to the bedroom. She always found the phrase  _ making love _ deeply embarrassing, but no other words seem accurate for mornings like this with him. Not that she would ever say it out loud. Eugh.

She means to offer to help him prep for his appearance afterward - she can do a pretty good impression of a xenophobic bigot pundit, when called upon - but she falls asleep again instead. When she wakes she can hear his voice again. It sounds different now. Staccato with interruptions. Louder with frustration. The holo hit, then.

“Governor, that’s misleading, those figures are -”

Silence.

“I acknowledge that there have been clashes, but we still have an obligation to -”

Silence.

“Thanks, Poppy. Pleasure to be here.”

She hovers in the bedroom until she’s sure he’s signed off. She finds him in the living room, every line of him rigid.

“You okay?” she asks.

He yanks out his ear bud. “I think I lost that one.”

“Does winning and losing really matter?”

His laugh is bitter. “Unfortunately, I think it might. My inability to refute the made-up talking points they spout at the speed of light could cost people their fucking lives.”

“Chakotay -”

“I need to go pick up Pako.”

“I’ll go with you,” she wants to say, but he’s already gone.

*****

_ Seven _

I have been reading a lot of psychological theory. I believe it’s helped me to understand why I embarked on my peculiar quest to seduce Chakotay years ago. On the face of it it was an odd decision. He and I were not particularly close, nor was he the most physically attractive specimen on the ship.

It’s obvious really. I wanted to take something of hers. Something she valued enough to hurt. He’d never admit it, I’m pretty sure Chakotay’s motivations were similar, if not quite so freudian.

The human psyche is frankly disgusting. Say what you will about the Borg, but being a drone was much less embarrassing.

The relationship didn’t last, of course. That kind of poisonous beginning isn’t good for anything but the sex. But oddly, our bond did last. It turned out we had more in common than just resentment of the woman we loved. Neither of us knows what it’s like to get to take anything for granted.

We meet up once or twice a year. Nothing sexual - the thought embarrasses me now, frankly. And for the last few years he’s been seeing her. Aside from the occasional flare-up of my competitive instinct, I wish them well. She’s so much happier.

No, when we meet up it’s usually to sightsee in a city neither of us have visited before. We make good traveling companions. It’s no secret, but I don’t mention it to anyone, and I don’t think he does either. I like having a friend no one knows about. I suppose maybe on some level I always knew I’d need one.


	2. Chapter 2

_The Admiral_

After she’s showered and dressed - wouldn’t do to have Pako walk in on her half-naked - Chakotay still isn’t back. He must have taken Pako to the park. She suppresses a little pinprick of hurt that she wasn’t invited and decides to get some work done. Shore leave is no excuse, and there’s a pile of messages to slog through.

She gives up after a few. It will take her a couple more days here before she’s up to it. Lately it feels like the whole of Starfleet is screaming at her. It used to be that just her name was enough to open doors. Everyone wanted to get close to the hero of the Delta Quadrant. But Starfleet’s changed, and the more she refuses to change with it, the cooler her reception gets. These last few months it’s like she can feel the hostility before she even hits send.

_You idiots,_ she wants to scream at the other admirals. _I know what it’s like when your safe world disappears. I know the mistakes it can drive you to. You stupid fuckers have to_ listen to me _._

The Esperanza is a good ship. Good people. But sometimes…

She pushes the thought aside. Once she’s had a few days here, she’ll feel like less of a raw nerve, and she’ll get back into the fight. 

Instead, she goes downstairs and rearranges things in her closet. Chakotay has told her she doesn’t need to leave her things packed away in storage boxes, but she finds herself oddly reluctant to take up space here. She loves this house as it is. The pine scent of the beams in the living room. The artwork and pictures on the wall. He even has a piece of Voyager - a fragment of hull, sheared away in some disaster or another. She’s not sure how or why he kept it, and if she saw it in any other context it would probably flood her body with stress hormones, but here, it looks - beautiful. Peaceful, even. The whole house is peaceful. Even when Pako is here.

Speak of the devil. She heads outside at the sound of an off key little voice singing lustily in Navajo. Chakotay is walking up the hill, hand in hand with Pako. When he sees her, the little boy yelps and sprints up the hill to tackle her. “Auntie Kathryn! You’re here! Want to see my new bike?”

“Do I ever!” she says. She flicks a glance at Chakotay - she knows he tries to be consistent about Pako putting his school things away and having a snack before running off to play - but he smiles and takes Pako’s discarded backpack. 

“Go play, you two,” he says.

After she’s admired his bike, they have a rousing game in the backyard, and the rules are uncertain but the goal is not. Pako runs away and her job is to chase him down and tickle him till he shrieks for mercy. Not the worst way to spend part of an afternoon.

Nobody told him to call her _Auntie Kathryn_. Nadia and Wea have about eleven sisters between them, so maybe he’s put her in the same category. There was a while when he was younger when he called her _the Auntmiral_ \- everyone found that extremely cute. She can’t help but wish someone would set him straight. She imagines doing it herself.

_You know how your mommies love each other? Well, your daddy loves me the same way. I’m not your freaking_ aunt, _kid._

_When your moms decided they wanted a baby, they went to your Mama Wea’s old friend and asked him to help out. He said yes, but he didn’t want to be just a donor. He wanted to be your dad. And that’s how you got so lucky to have three great parents._

_And if I had gotten my head out of my ass a little sooner, maybe Chakotay’s child would call me Mom instead of Aunt._

Yeah. Probably best to let it lie.

After dinner she goes for a long walk so Chakotay can do bedtime. Pako loves her as a playmate, but he gets possessive of his dad if she’s around too much, so she tries to give them space. She takes her time, enjoying the rare feeling of being completely alone.

The setting sun is lighting the hills on fire. She can see Nadia and Wea’s house, perched on the next hill - a twenty minute walk, but close enough as the crow flies that they can wave good night to each other from their backyards. She marvels once again at the life he’s built for himself. She spent so many years counting on his quiet support that it never occurred to her that once he wasn’t hers anymore, he’d be much better at this whole _living_ thing than she is.

When she gets home it’s dark. The front door is open, spilling golden light onto the blue-black porch, and she can hear Chakotay speaking again. Something makes her stop on the first step.

She can see him silhouetted in the living room, picking up Pako’s toys. He’s alone.

Who is he talking to?

“No, you’re right… I don’t like it either… but we can’t put her in that position. ...OK, you too, Seven.”

*****

_Seven_

I visited him once, with her. It was her idea. They had drifted apart I think, after Voyager’s return. My decision not to remain with Starfleet had made my relationship with her awkward as well.

When she contacted me to say she wanted to see me that shore leave, she asked me to visit his home with her.

It was a few years ago, before they were together, and she was hell-bent on making sure we could all be _good friends._ If she thought there would be any awkwardness in my staying in the home of a man whom I had once loved, or thought I did, she didn’t show it. Kathryn Janeway, a woman who once rammed her ship between two pulsars to solve a problem, sometimes has a similar approach to friendship.

“No excuses, now, Seven,” she’d said. “I don’t get enough shore leave to divide it up between the people I care about. You’ll love it there.”

I did not. Chakotay’s home is in an area surrounded by woodlands, for no good reason. I did not care for rustic pretensions.

At least that’s what I told them. It sounded so much like the old Seven that they laughed and let it slide. I had only recently consciously categorized my feelings towards women, and suddenly it was like girls were everywhere, filling my senses. The flow of their hair, the curve of shoulders, waists, breasts, thighs, the clothing that flaunted and concealed in endless variations - I was dizzy with it. _Who is that? Is she looking at me? Does she like girls? Should I flirt with her? Do I want to copy her hairstyle or thread my fingers through it?_ Everyone in Chakotay’s neighborhood was married with children. I was bored - not because I was part Borg, but because I was young.

She could tell I was restless, but not why. I caught her looking at me quizzically sometimes. I think Chakotay had a better idea of what was going on. I saw him staring at my chest one day. He’d never done that, even when we were dating. He was just about the only one Voyager who hadn’t.

“What?” I said.

“It’s still weird to see you in a shirt that fits properly,” he said, nodding to my t-shirt.

“Ha ha.” I tugged at it a little. I was wearing a dark grey tank top with the logo of a Klingon thrash band. I found their music unbearable, but I’d seen B’Elanna Torres wearing one at the last reunion picnic and liked the way it looked. I’d replicated a pair of worn-out shorts like hers too.

“It looks nice,” he said. “You look… relaxed. I’m glad to see that side of you.”

“Thanks.”

He resumed chopping wood. “You know,” he said, “My friend’s daughter is in town for the summer. She works as a guide on the rapids. Maybe you two should -”

“Don’t,” I said sharply.

He didn’t break his rhythm. “Just thought you might like the rapids,” he said peacefully.

“Don’t try to set me up with your friends’ daughters like you’re an elderly relative, instead of -” I bit my lip. “I don’t need your pity.”

He stopped again, and looked me up and down - letting me see not just curiosity, but appreciation. “Believe me, Seven,” he said, “When it comes to attracting potential mates, you don’t need anyone’s pity.”

I laughed a little at that. 

“Come on,” he said. “Help me carry in the wood. Let’s see if the Admiral’s awake yet.” And I did. There should be a word in our language for _person I loved once but do not love anymore but will always love._

The three of us got into an ugly fight over dinner that night. Federation politics. It was before the recent troubles, so she was surprised, I think, when Chakotay and I ended up siding with each other, against her. Starfleet has always been her biggest blind spot.

“I agree that Senator O’Hanlon is a bigoted old idiot,” she said. “He should be put out to pasture -”

“He should be court martialed,” I corrected.

“He should be shoved out an airlock,” Chakotay muttered.

“- But he’s only one man, and an outlier at that.”

“He’s not, Kathryn,” Chakotay said. “He’s just a sign of something ugly, something that’s growing.”

“It is true,” I said. “Analysis of the current media landscape shows that journalists are significantly underrating his support. When they realize their error, historical trends suggest they will overcorrect, significantly shifting the Overton window in his favor.”

“Since when are you an expert in political science?” she said.

“I am not,” I said. “I am an expert in dispassionately analyzing large amounts of data. It would be better for the Federation if more within its ranks were so.” When I got upset I always sounded like she’d just pried me loose from the collective.

She banged her glass down on the table so hard the silverware clinked. “Is that meant to be a dig at me? I’m fairly high up in those _ranks.”_

“Certainly not,” I said. “I know how much you value Starfleet ideals. But ideals are worth nothing if only a few are willing to stand by them.”

“You’re wrong,” she said. “The Federation makes mistakes, but it will never betray what it stands for.”

Chakotay snorted. She whipped her head around to look at him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You have read my file, haven’t you?”

She hesitated. “I - I didn’t mean to appear insensitive.”

He waved this off. I wondered how many similar comments he’d swallowed over the years. “Kathryn, you’re from Indiana. You believe in the Federation like it’s eternal. To those of us from the outskirts, or from even further -” he nodded at me. “Sometimes it just looks like another clump of planets in a big, cold galaxy, fighting to survive.”

_An apt description,_ I almost said, then I remembered how far I’d come and murmured, “Mm hmm.”

Her eyes grew hard. “Neither of you complained during the seven years that Starfleet was getting you home safe.”

“Hell, is _that_ what you think got us home?” he shook his head. “Kathryn, it was _us_. _All_ of us. _Including_ those of us who put our own ideals aside to live under your rules.”

“And I’m pretty sure we both complained many times,” I pointed out.

She stood up and began clearing the table. “I think I’d better see if that hotel in town has any rooms available tonight.”

“Oh, save it.” He reached out, like he was going to touch her hand, then rested it on the tablecloth. “Kathryn, believe it or not, no one loves Starfleet’s principles more than I do. Why do you think I supported you so willingly? You’re the only person I’ve ever met who truly embodies them.”

“Oh, that’s the only reason?” she said, a strange edge to her voice. “Really, my _angry warrior?_ ”

I didn’t know what it meant, but from the way something behind his eyes went flat, I knew she went too far. She knew it too. “Chakotay -”

He stood and took the plates out of her hand, but looked only at me. “Seven, I left you some fresh towels in the guest house. Admiral, let’s see about getting you that hotel room.”

One of the things that was hardest for me to grasp about human society was how to pick up on cues that I ought to take my leave. Luckily, this one was unmistakable. I slipped out the back door. An hour later, when I put out the light, I could still hear them shouting at each other. When it stopped I thought maybe she’d finally headed for the hotel, but when I came inside the next morning, there they both were, holding hands.

I went whitewater rafting after all.

Chakotay’s friend’s daughter was named Emma. She was working on a doctorate in mathematics, but she was thinking of leaving the program to be a rafting instructor full time. Her hair was long and dark and smelled like sunscreen and camping shampoo. She wore shirts she dyed herself, not caring if they faded in the sun. She made some for me too, though she always said I was too square to pull them off. For her sake, I learned to love rustic pretensions. I even learned to love sleeping under the stars. We were talking about a more permanent arrangement when she took a six-month consulting job on a transwarp modeling project and she died at Utopia Planitia. I still have one of the shirts. It’s one of the only things I’m bringing with me.


	3. Chapter 3

_The Admiral_

She stands frozen on the step for a moment. _Seven? Why is he talking to Seven?_

_What position can’t they put me in?_

She makes herself go inside. “Hey,” he greets her easily. “Nice walk?”

She joins him in picking up toys. A stuffed targ. A Neelix doll - there was a children’s animated series based on Voyager a few years ago, and Neelix was a breakout favorite among the five-year-old set. “Mm hmm,” she says. “Pako asleep?”

He shakes his head in fond exasperation, and gestures upstairs with his chin. “Listen.” A drowsy little voice is still singing the Navajo nursery rhyme. “He’s obsessed with that song. You’re going to get very sick of it before you leave.”

“I don’t know. I kind of like it.” She tries to hum along. “What’s it about?”

“A baby bear, I think? Not sure. I just wish that school of his would teach him one of the languages of his own tribes. But since I don’t speak anything but Standard myself…” he shrugs. “It is what it is.”

It’s an old complaint of his, and she’s tempted to let this conversation run smoothly along familiar tracks until it carries them to sleep. But no matter how much she loves to preserve the peace of this place, she is still herself. “How’s Seven?” she says.

He’s halfway to standing, clutching a handful of wooden blocks. He stills, then straightens the rest of the way, and with a pang she can see that he’s deciding whether to lie to her or not. “Seven?” he says neutrally.

“Yes,” she says. “I heard you talking to her. Just now. And… maybe this morning too?”

“Mm,” he says. “I think you heard me talking about her. Sometimes she comes up in my holo hits. Since the Mars disaster, people have questions.” She opens her mouth to let him have it, but he adds casually, “Now that I think about it, I remember Pako’s song is about a scorpion.”

Her rant sticks in her throat. “Funny subject for a nursery rhyme,” she says, matching his offhand tone.

“Well, your people had rhymes about plague outbreaks. I’ll take those.” He holds out his hand, and she gives him the toys. As he takes them, his thumb rubs over hers. _Follow my lead,_ she assumes he’s saying. 

She traps his hand in hers for a second. _This better be good._

She leaves him to finish his tidying and goes back to the kitchen to pour herself a drink. He still has one bottle of Antarian cider left, and she’s tempted to open it just to spite him, but that seems a disproportionate response. Instead she pours them each a whisky on the rocks.

When she goes back to the living room he’s on the couch, leaning his forehead in his hand. He sits up when he hears her. Takes the glass, with a warning look - _wait, one more second_ \- then runs his hand casually under the coffee table. She feels the hairs on her arms stand up. A dampening field.

“It’s safe to talk now,” he says. “But we have to be fast.”

She sits in the arm chair, out of his reach, and takes a sip of her whisky. “This is an awful lot of trouble to go to just to tell me you’re cheating on me with your ex.”

He rolls his eyes. “Ha ha.”

She just stares at him.

He grows serious. “I’m not.”

“Okay. Then what?”

He takes a deep breath. “I was talking to Seven just now. And this morning.”

“I know.”

“And… I went to see her, before I picked up Pako.”

“So she’s here. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“She isn’t. Not exactly.”

She tilts her head and gives him the look that she knows still makes him want to stand at attention. “Are you really going to make me drag this out of you?”

“Oh, love.” He rubs a hand over his face, and suddenly he looks so lost and sad that her breath catches. She thought maybe she was overreacting, but no, whatever this is, it’s worse than she thought. “I really wish you could walk away from this.”

“You know me better than that.”

“I do. All right. But you have to promise not to tell anyone - _anyone_ \- about this. It’s important.”

_I’ll be the judge of that,_ she wants to snap, but restrains herself. “You know you can trust me.”

He gets up and goes to the wall. He places his hands against that large fragment of Voyager that’s mounted on the wall like modern art and presses. It moves smoothly aside under his touch. Behind it is the outline of an irregularly-shaped window.

“It’s harder for them to scan for it if it’s not door-shaped,” he explains, and before she can ask _If what’s not?_ he taps on the side of the frame and it emits a familiar shimmer-hum.

“A transport gate,” she says. “An unregistered one.”

He’s pulling the little set of stairs Pako uses to reach the upper bookshelves against the wall. “Yeah. Sorry we have to crawl through.” He gestures gallantly. “After you.”

She considers refusing, but she does still trust him, and besides, when it comes to mysterious gateways, when has Kathryn Janeway ever been able to resist? Never, as her asshole boyfriend no doubt knows. She goes through.

She comes out on the floor of a starship. Small, but sleek and new and deadly-looking. The viewscreen is filled with the planet she’s just left. They’re in orbit above it.

As Chakotay comes out behind her, the pilot turns.

“Well this is pathetic, even for you,” Seven says to Chakotay.

*****

_Seven_

The last time I saw her was a few months ago. It was shortly after Mars. After Emma, as I thought of it.

She only met Emma once. Emma called her _Auntmiral_ by accident then spent the rest of lunch apologizing. The admiral didn’t mind. She liked Emma immensely, she told me, which I thought was a little silly to say about someone she’d only known for a few hours. We tried to get together again but it never worked out. She sent me a message a few weeks after Mars, to say how sorry she was. There was so much death that day that it took awhile for people like her to realize which of their friends required condolences. I didn’t answer. I didn’t answer anyone’s messages. I was on Vulcan at the time, working with a team of engineers there on a variable-frequency shield system. The advantage of such a system is that it cannot be bypassed easily by frequency-based weaponry, but it requires tremendous power to maintain. I believe we can create a self-reinforcing power-feedback within the shield system that would offset the drain.

It’s a beautiful problem. Vast and complicated and might take decades to solve. I returned to it the day after the funeral and only stopped to sleep. I didn’t want to go offworld for the conference, but I had to consult with a warp researcher there, so off I went to Risa. 

It was an unpleasant journey. People had always stared at my implants, but now it was worse. I planned to do no more than show my face at the opening reception, but when I entered the hotel banquet hall there was the admiral. Her eyes widened, she flew across the hall to me and before I knew it I was being crushed in her embrace.

“Seven,” she said, in that distinctive voice. I realized too late the danger I was in. I could feel the armor I’d constructed out of mathematics and data analysis fracturing at the touch of someone who knew me. It was like something in my chest was shaking itself apart.

I wrenched myself away from her. “Not here,” I managed.

She nodded slowly. “All right. Meet me later then.”

“Maybe.”

We met again at the hotel bar later that night. I knew she wouldn’t take no for an answer.

I ignored the hostile stares from the other patrons and got the first round. She asked how I was and I told her, at length, about the technical specs of the shield project, ignoring her growing look of disappointment until she finally stopped me mid-sentence.

“You sound like you did five years ago,” she said. “I asked how _you_ were.”

“I’m fine.”

She took my hand. The shuddering feeling in my chest started again. “I was fine,” I amended. “Until I saw you.”

“Seven.” Her hand squeezed. “I am so sorry about Emily.”

_“Emma,”_ I said, and burst into tears.

I don’t know how long she held me in that booth as I cried. I’m sure a therapist would call it an important breakthrough in my grieving process, but I hated it. I’d buried myself in an iceberg and she’d melted it. Now I was drowning.

When I’d cried myself out she went to the bar and came back with two coffees. “I’ve been where you are,” she said. “I lost my first love too.”

“Not my first,” I pointed out. “I loved Chakotay.”

“Mm,” she said politely. She didn’t believe me. I suppose that made everything easier for her.

“I loved you.”

Her brows rose. “Did you? Were you in love with me?”

“I don’t know.” I leaned my cheek in my hand. After what I’d just done in front of her, nothing seemed too embarrassing to talk about. “You loomed so large to me back then. There was nothing I didn’t feel for you, to the extent that I could feel.” I smiled wryly. “You seemed too important not to be in love with.”

“Too important not to be in love with.” She tipped some of her whisky into her coffee. “That’s why people want to be captains, all right.”

“Did you ever think about it? Me?”

“You’re just about the most attractive humanoid I’ve ever seen. So, yes. But… I tried not to.”

“You tried not to with Chakotay,” I pointed out. “But it never seemed to work.”

“It was different. I stayed away from him for the sake of the ship. I stayed away from you because you deserved better.”

“Emma was better,” I said. “She was better than anything.”

She took my hand again. “Tell me about her.”

I shook my head. “I can’t. Tell me about your first love.”

Her gaze was very warm. “All right. I’ll tell you about Justin.”

I wish she had. I wish we’d spent the rest of that evening telling secrets and deepening our friendship. I wanted to lean my head on her shoulder and let her make all my decisions. Maybe I would have told her about Emma, even. But the world was bigger than our little booth.

The drunk who slammed up to our table was as tall as a Nausicaan, but he was human all right. “Hey synth,” he slurred at me. “Why don’t you get out of here before I waste you like you wasted Mars.”

She turned astonished eyes up to him. “Excuse me, sir,” she said. “I don’t think you know who you’re talking to. Back off. Now.”

“Metalhead,” he snarled at me.

I stiffened. Normally I had a better radar for this sort of thing, but she’d broken down all my defenses. “It’s all right. We’ll go.”

  
“Oh, no.” She was raring to go now. “This isn’t some backworld dive. We’re on _Risa,_ for heaven’s sake.” She called to the bartender. “Are you going to get a bouncer over here? Because if not I’ll beam in my security detail.”

The bartender was staring at me stonily. “How about you all leave,” he said.

“Us?” she said. “That’s outrageous.”

Did she really not see that every patron in the bar was glaring at me? The last thing I wanted was to see that same hatred and fear on the faces of her Starfleet security officers. I rose to go.

“That’s right,” slurred the drunk. “Synth bitch.”

Shit.

She surged to her feet, all five foot two of her, and somehow got in his face. I had one crazy moment where I thought, _Of course, the captain will fix it. She’ll make them see that this prejudice against synthetic life forms is disgusting and unfair and destructive. She’ll make them writhe with shame. She’ll protect me._

“She’s not a synth,” Janeway bit out. “She’s as human as you or me.”

Emma’s father had said more or less the same thing, standing outside her funeral, trying to get her brother to stop cursing my name and let me inside. I did the same thing I had then. I left.


	4. Chapter 4

_The Admiral_

Seven looks different. She’s shaved one side of her head, flaunting the Borg implant that trails back along her scalp. She looks wildly cool.

She looks straight past Kathryn to her companion. “Really?” she says to Chakotay. “It hasn’t even been half an hour since we agreed not to tell her.”

“She overheard me by accident,” he says.

Seven rolls her eyes (rolls her eyes! How she’s changed) and says, “I don’t know how you commanded a secret rebel ship for years when you can’t even keep a secret for thirty minutes.”

He smiles a little and ducks his head. Kathryn has always envied how things just roll off him. “Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?” she demands.

“No,” snaps Seven.

Kathryn crosses her arms. “I’m a little hurt that you two didn’t trust me with whatever this is.”

“It’s not necessary,” says Seven.

“Why are you so angry with me, Seven?”

“I’m not. I just have a lot of strong feelings about Starfleet right now. Admiral.” She punches in a command with extra vehemence.

“It’s not about trust, Kathryn.” Chakotay puts a warm hand on her shoulder. “Seven’s on her way out of Federation space, with… an unofficial flight plan.”

“Why?”

“You really don’t know?” Seven says. “It’s because, _Admiral,_ the Federation is just about to announce a blanket ban on synths.”

Kathryn blinks. “Well, would that really be so bad?”

Both of them turn to stare at her. She hurries on, “I was never a big fan of those poor synth workers they used at Utopia Planitia. It always seemed perilously close to slavery to me, even though they’re not properly sentient. I don’t think we _should_ make more of them.”

“Kathryn,” Chakotay says slowly. “The Federation is going to ban _all_ synthetic life forms. Including androids. Including former Borg.”

“So I’m leaving before they can kick me out,” Seven adds.

“We have proof,” Chakotay says. “I can show you the messages Seven obtained, with the help of some of my old Maquis contacts.”

Kathryn feels as though the gravity on the ship is malfunctioning. “No. No, you must be wrong. Surely I would have heard -”

“You wouldn’t. They’re keeping anyone who might be able to stop them out of the loop.”

“If this is true I damn well _will_ stop them. I’ll call Paris and Oh and we’ll -”

“Oh is with them,” Seven says.

She wants to grab onto something. When did she become so easy to shock? In the Delta Quadrant nothing could throw her off balance.

She waves a hand around, encompassing him, Seven, the ship. “So what is all this?”

“It’s too late to fight this through channels,” Chakotay says. He smiles that sweet smile that still makes her heart lurch. “But I know a little something about lost causes.”

“The Federation isn’t only screwing me over,” says Seven. “They’re going to pull out of the neutral zone. The people there are going to need help. That’s where I’m going. Out to Fenris.”

“Others are joining her there,” Chakotay says. “It’s a good fight. I’m helping them as best I can.”

For the first time in her life, Kathryn feels old. Old and stupid and easy to trick. How could all of this be going on under her nose?

“Show me,” she says. “Show me the proof.”

They do. While Chakotay goes back planetside to be near Pako, and Seven taps away at her console, Kathryn reads. It’s not just this hideous legislation, either, though the polite bureaucratic messages that outline an ethnic cleansing make her want to be sick. Apparently, there have been a series of hate crimes across the Federation against anyone considered synthetic. None of them was reported on the major news channels. No wonder Seven is sneaking across the border like a thief in the night. She might not be safe on a legal transport.

Seven has gone to bed by the time she’s done, but when she crawls back through the gate, Chakotay is waiting up for her. She sags onto the couch and puts her head in his lap, curls around the cold pain in her middle.

“I’ve been an idiot,” she says.

He strokes her hair. “No one knew it would get this bad.”

“You did.”

“I’m a cynical bastard. You kept the faith. They’re the ones who failed, not you.”

This man, she thinks not for the first time, loves her far too much. Far more than she deserves. She rolls over so she can look up into his face. “I have to resign,” she says. The words hurt.

He goes still. “Don’t do anything rash.”

“Well, what else can I do? I can’t be a party to this. I’m betraying Seven if I stay.”

“Sleep on it,” he says. “Things might look different in the morning.”

“You just don’t want me hanging around here all the time,” she tries to joke, and is mortified to hear her voice wobble.

“Kathryn -”

“I’m kidding.”

“Good.”

“I hope I’m kidding.”

He guides her to sitting so he can look her in the eye. “I would keep you here every day if I could.”

“Then why did you hide this from me for so long?” she whispers.

“I didn’t want you to carry it before you had to.”

“But-”

He kisses her, softly, slowly, cradling one of her hands over his heart. “Sleep on it,” he repeats.

So she sleeps, deep and dreamless, and wakes early in the morning before the sun is up. She lays there for a while, Chakotay’s arm loosely around her waist and his soft snores in her ear. Thinking. The pre-dawn grey shadows gradually warm and brighten. When the first birds begin to sing, she slips out of his arms and heads downstairs to make coffee.

Chakotay doesn’t wake, but Pako does, and joins her downstairs. She lets him convince her that he’s allowed to replicate sugar cereal. If the dim picture she’s beginning to see is accurate, no one will grudge her a chance to spoil him a little.

Pako has a playdate so midmorning she and Chakotay walk him over to his friend’s house together. He holds hands with both of them and demands that they swing him. She knows her back will kill her tomorrow but she does it. As he whoops with glee, she glances up into the cloudless sky. Somewhere up there is Seven, hidden in plain sight.

After they drop off Pako they turn off without a word onto the trail to the falls. The hike is too vigorous to talk much on the way up. They’re starting too late in the day, too, and the sun beats down fiercely on her fair skin and she winces. This, too, will hurt tomorrow. It’s worth it, though, as it always is, to see the water pouring fiercely down the mountainside, roaring and spitting rainbows. He goes to sit at the picnic tables but she tugs him toward the half-secret path up the rocks.

Behind the falls the roar of the water is near deafening. Droplets cling to her hair and lashes. She tugs him by the hand toward the back of the small cave, where someone has left an old bench. She taps her lips and looks a question at him - _safe to talk here?_

He shrugs, then nods - _yeah, I think so._

She puts her lips up to his ear to be heard. “It’s the news holos,” she says.

He nods. His fingers tighten around hers.

“Those hate crimes against synthetics. Lord knows the news holos haven’t done a good job of covering the issue, but those attacks should have been at least mentioned.”

His lips tickle the shell of her ear. “I brought it up at an internal meeting, once. They looked terrified. That’s when I knew for sure.”

“Everything that’s happening - these new laws - it’s not just a wave of paranoia that grips societies from time to time. Someone is controlling it. Censoring inconvenient facts. Directing the narrative. Someone high up on the inside.”

“Several someones, we think.”

“So here’s where we are,” she says. “Seven’s heading out into the black to start the new Maquis -”

He snorts. “Over my dead body will they call it that.”

“- And you’re here, speaking truth to power and secretly running a stop on the underground railroad -”

“ _Never_ call it that.”

“But that won’t be enough,” she says. “Will it. The cancer’s spread too deep. To have any chance of fixing this, _you_ need someone high up on the inside.”

Chakotay puts his lips to her ear again, but instead of speaking, he just kisses her there.

“I have to stay in,” she says. “I have to appear to go along with this. That’s why you said _don’t do anything rash._ ”

“It was Seven who made me see it,” he says. “We argued about it for weeks. I wanted to get you out of there.”

“Seven always sees things clearly.”

They’re quiet for a minute, damp heads leaned together, fingers gripping each other as though for dear life.

“There’s more,” she says.

He shifts. “We don’t have to talk about that part today.”

But she’s never been good at avoiding things. She takes a deep breath. “It won’t be very plausible, will it, for a compliant Starfleet admiral to date a pro-synth, pro-Romulan radical?”

“Probably not,” he says quietly.

“At the very least, it will attract the kind of attention I need to avoid.”

“I love you,” he says, and it sounds like _don’t leave me._

She forces herself to say the words. “We’re going to have to end it.”

He puts an arm around her, crushing her against his side, and she hugs back just as fiercely. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” he says. “It wasn’t that I don’t trust you. But you’ve always been so strong, and I - God help me, I needed more time with you.”

“It’s funny, you know,” she says. “When I said I would resign, just for a second I - I felt _relieved._ I thought, _I can be with Chakotay full time. I can be Pako’s stepmother. I can go home now.”_

“Look at it this way,” he says. “If anyone knows how to not sleep together for the greater good, it’s us, right?”

She laughs and buries her face against his shoulder. They stay like that for a long time.

*****

_Seven_

She turns up once more on my ship. She’s in uniform this time, hair perfectly slicked back into the bun of old. “I brought you something,” she says without preamble. She holds out a little bundle wrapped in dinosaur paper. “Left over from Pako’s birthday,” she shrugs. 

I open it. It’s a woodcut of a wolf, opening its jaws impossibly wide. “Fenris,” she says. “I know that’s where you’re headed. I thought it might be a good name for your organization, too.”

I frown. “As I recall, the Fenris of Norse myth is the child of chaos. He kills the king of the gods, bringing on Ragnarok. Hardly a heroic figure.”

“Depends on how you look at it. He did what he had to, killing the old world to make way for the new.”

“There was no new world. It was Ragnarok.”

She shakes her head and says, “Fine, Seven. Never mind.” She tries to take it back but I hold it out of her reach.

“Fenris,” I say. “The Fenris Rangers.”

“Has a nice ring to it.”

I affix it to the bulkhead, then stand back next to her to consider the effect.

“I like it,” she says. “Looks good.”

“In the event of a firefight, it could come loose and be a dangerous projectile.”

She heaves a sigh. “Just pretend to like it until I leave, would you?”

“I do like it,” I say. “I -” my words are cut off by an unexpected lump in my throat. This might be the last time we’re ever together.

She takes my hand and squeezes hard. “I know you don’t need a reminder to be heroic,” she says. “But please, Seven - be fierce. Be ferocious. Make it through this, so that someday I can see you again.”

“I will,” I say. “You, too.”

She waves a hand. “Please. I have the easy job. I’m not cut out for the outlaw lifestyle like you two. Give me San Francisco coffee shops and a view of the bay any day.”

“You have the hardest job of any of us, and you know it.” I squeeze her hand back. “Thank you.”

“For you, Seven, I’d do it a hundred times over.”

The next time I see her, she’ll be on a holo news channel, mouthing moderate platitudes about how all sides need to consider the complexity of the situation. She’ll become a fixture of the networks with such appearances. _Admiral Both-ways,_ the Rangers will nickname her, and put her face on a phaser target, not knowing that she’s the reason they’ll eat that month. Once, a sneaky producer will book her on the same panel as Chakotay, and the frosty barbs they hurl at each other will drive the clip to billions of titillated views.

But here, now, she holds out her arms and I go into them. “I love you so much,” she whispers. “And I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “It’ll be okay.” And I hope I’m right.


	5. Chapter 5

_Pako_

Pako’s dad thinks himself quite the radical, but Pako knows better. His rage at the old man’s blindness is so great it sometimes consumes him, makes it impossible to be in the same room.

“How can you think you’re doing good by appearing on those channels?” he yells at him. “You’re just legitimizing a corrupt system.”

“Big words,” his dad says mildly. “Been watching the pirate political holos again?”

“At least they tell the truth,” Pako spits.

“So do I,” says his Dad. Then he goes to Pako’s room and confiscates his holoprojector.

He is _such_ a hypocrite. If he really cared about refugees and synth rights, he’d be out there, with the Fenris rangers, fighting for justice. Well, maybe not, Pako allows, thinking of his dad’s blood pressure. But at least he’d let Pako go.

“No militias till you finish high school,” says his dad. “Could be a long time, unless you get your calculus grade up.”

_"Dad.”_

“Even better, wait till you finish college. Have you thought about Starfleet Academy? Thanks to my Starfleet experience, I got my own ship when I joined the Maquis. It could really put you ahead of the other insurgents.”

“I am not joining Starfleet.”

“Not with those calculus grades, you’re not.”

He tries to refuse to go over to Dad’s anymore, but Mom and Bia’ won’t back him. “He’s your father,” says Mom.

“You’re my _donor,"_ Pako spits at him the next time they’re fighting. “I’ve got two decent parents already. I don’t need you.”

“Maybe not, but you’ve got me. Want to go for a hike?”

Bia’ laughs till she cries when she hears about that exchange. “You’re just like he was at that age,” she says. “You’re not going to break him, Pako. He’s wise to all your tricks.”

There’s only one thing that gets a rise out of his father, and Pako discovers it without even trying. They’re watching the holos one evening and Admiral Janeway comes on. She’s giving a statement from the bridge of some fancy Starfleet vessel. “God, Admiral Both-ways,” Pako says. “I wish the Romulans would blow her out of the sky.”

His dad turns on him so fast it startles him. “Don’t you ever talk that way about her,” he says. “Ever. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” Pako says, ashamed of how his voice squeaks nervously. The pale rage on his dad’s face is something he’s never seen before.

“Good.” And he changes the channel and finds a Parrises Squares match for them to watch.

“What’s his problem?” he asks Mom. “He hates her himself! He’s famous for it! He was on _Voice of the Quadrant_ with her and he totally owned her!”

“His finest hour,” Mom says drily.

“It _was!"_

“Remember, Pako, they may disagree politically, but they have a lot of history together.”

To Pako, the fact that they used to date is even more reason to hate her. He doesn’t remember her - he was really little, and the only one of his father’s girlfriends he kind of remembers from back then was a woman who snuck him sweets and roughhoused with him for hours, and that _can’t_ be Janeway - but his moms have told him what a hard time Dad had with their breakup. She must have really done a number on him.

Which is why, when the doorbell rings one day and he opens the door to find Admiral Janeway standing on dad’s front step, he really doesn’t know what to say.

It’s at the end of a week of one dizzying news headline after another. ADMIRAL PICARD MISSING. PICARD SPOTTED IN NEUTRAL ZONE. BORG CUBE SABOTAGED. ADMIRAL OH REVEALED AS ROMULAN AGENT, FLEES FEDERATION SPACE. STARFLEET DEPLOYS SHIPS TO PROTECT MYSTERIOUS PLANET. And finally, in the biggest type of all: FEDERATION TO REPEAL BAN ON SYNTHETIC LIFEFORMS.

Pako wants to give her a piece of his mind, but he’s so shocked that he can’t say a word. She’s out of uniform, her silvery shoulder-length hair pulled halfway back in a clip. In person she looks younger. “Pako?” she says. “My God, you’re tall. The last time I saw you, you still needed a boost to replicate yourself a bowl of Choko Targs.” She grins. “Your father around?”

Pako finds his voice enough to yell, “Dad! Door!”

“Pako, don’t scre-” his dad stops halfway down the stairs. “Oh.”

“Chakotay,” she says. “Well, you’ve gotten old.”

Dad comes the rest of the way down to loom over her in the doorway. “We can’t all have access to the best plastic surgeons like Starfleet’s poster girl.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s clean living that keeps me looking this good.”

“And here I thought you made your living slinging bullshit.”

It’s all wrong. The words are right, the insults that a couple of ex-lovers and political foes should be slinging - but their voices are soft and they’re both beaming. Pako backs quietly into the hall. He needn’t have bothered. They’re not paying attention to anything but each other.

“Heard from Seven?” she says.

He nods. “She’s alive. With Picard. She and the rangers say thanks for those replicators.”

“I’m glad it all worked out,” she says.

“Thanks to you,” he says. “You signed off on that fleet of Riker’s, I assume?”

She ducks her head in a nod. “Oh’s cabal is done too. My people are rounding up the rest of her agents.”

“They’ll rue the day they underestimated Admiral Both-ways.”

She smirks. “I certainly hope so. I would hate to think I spent all those years being fatuous for nothing.”

“Kathryn,” he says softly.

“You know,” she says, reaching out one hand to touch the overgrown hair at his temple, “I think going grey actually suits you, old man.”

“The ladies love it,” he deadpans.

“Not lately, according to my spies.”

He nods to her own silver hair. “How’s it working out for you? Pulling in lots of eligible bachelors?”

“Oh, hundreds.”

There’s an awkward silence. Then Admiral Janeway says, “Chakotay - I know it’s been a long time, but if you still - if any part of you -”

Before she can finish speaking, before Pako can quite look away, Dad is kissing her. Like - _kissing_ her. His hands come up to frame her face and she’s leaning into him before Pako manages to fling an arm across his eyes.

He must make some sound because they leave off abruptly and Dad says “Pako,” with a laugh in his voice.

_“Eugh,"_ says Pako.

The admiral has the grace to look a little embarrassed. “Fair enough,” she says and tries to move away, but Dad just laughs and keeps his arm tight around her waist.

“Embarrassed to see your old man work his magic on the ladies?” he says.

Pako’s entire nature wants to say something scathing to that, but his dad looks so happy that it dies on his lips. He settles for a half-hearted, “You’re the worst. I’m going to Kelsey’s.”

“Be back by nine,” Dad says absently, his attention already back on the admiral in his arms. 

As Pako slouches out the door, he hears her say, “So. Dawn hike to the falls?”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” says Dad.


End file.
